May We Be Forgiven

check.
    “We can have lunch again in the next few weeks.”
    “I want more than lunch,” she says.
    “Really, I don’t know what to say.”
    “Say you want me,” she repeats herself.
    I say nothing. The check comes, I pass the waiter my credit card without even looking at the bill—I need to get out of here.
    Her eyes fill with tears.
    “Don’t cry—this was nice, we had fun, the pizza was delicious.”
    “You’re so sweet,” she says.
    “Really I’m not,” I say.
    Together we walk to the parking lot. As I’m bidding her farewell, she pushes me between two parked cars, throws her purse over her shoulder, and gropes my crotch. “You need me,” she says, giving the goods a hard pump. “I am your future.”

    M onday’s class was described in my syllabus as “Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World.” The line is a direct quote from the great man himself, describing his 1972 trip to China. The trip was actually an eight-day, carefully orchestrated, made-for-television view behind the Bamboo Curtain. An incredibly unlikely diplomatic achievement pulled off by a staunch anti-communist—in fact, when Nixon first presented the idea to his own men, they thought he’d lost his chips. In classic Nixon fashion, the President appeared to back off but instead worked through diplomatic back channels via Poland and Yugoslavia, taking advantage of a fissure in Soviet-Sino relations, and mindful that the country with the world’s largest population was “living in angry isolation.” The payoff of his daring détente increased U. S. leverage with Russia, prompting the SALT II talks and the slow unwinding of Cold War tensions. My favorite bit of the script—Kissinger’s July 1971 stop in Pakistan, during which he feigned illness at a dinner, left, and flew to China for secret meetings with Zhou Enlai that laid the groundwork for Nixon’s trip. The presidential visit itself was replete with the stuff of burgeoning friendship, an excursion to the Great Wall, displays of Ping-Pong and gymnastics, and of course the First Lady, indelible Pat, in her bright-red coat.
    And at the infamous February 21, 1972, banquet in Peking, President Nixon raised a glass to Chairman Mao, and said,
    What legacy shall we leave our children? Are they destined to die for the hatreds which have plagued the old world, or are they destined to live because we had the vision to build a new world? There is no reason for us to be enemies. Neither of us seeks the territory of the other; neither of us seeks domination over the other; neither of us seeks to stretch out our hands and rule the world. Chairman Mao has written, “So many deeds cry out to be done, and always urgently. The world rolls on. Time passes. Ten thousand years are too long. Seize the day, seize the hour.” This is the hour, this is the day for our two peoples to rise to the heights of greatness which can build a new and a better world.

    A few days later, the telephone rings. I don’t hear the ring, only the voice on the machine.
    “I trust you realize that, however we decide to proceed, our work must remain in confidence.”
    I pick up. “Of course,” I say, without a clue to whom I’m speaking.
    She continues. “At some point we’ll spend some time together, but for the moment I’d like to get a sense of what you think might be there. …”
    “Where?” I ask, hoping for a clue.
    “In the pages,” she says.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, “but I picked up as you were speaking, may I ask who’s calling?”
    “Julie Eisenhower,” she says.
    “Of course, my apologies.” I take a breath.
    “What was it like?” she asks.
    “Amazing—a dream come true. I felt like a kid in a candy store—up close and personal. It was a thrill to hold the pages he wrote on, to feel the weight of his hand, the pressure of his pen, the urgency with which he needed to express himself. It was”—I draw a long breath—“transcendent.”
    “And what about the material itself—what do you make of the content?”
    “Well, there’s a freedom to the work, a lack of self-consciousness—the stories are surprisingly candid. And there’s a depth of imagination and feeling, perhaps call it pathos, which people don’t often associate with your father. And more: the stories are illustrative of a kind of knowing about the common man, about an everyday Joe, in a way that humanizes your father, giving the reader a sense of his history, his values, his own progression and